Suspicious Minds
by ilovetvalot
Summary: THREESHOT...In the aftermath of Ian Doyle's reign of terror, Emily finds help in an unlikely place. Another example of the theme song challenge!
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note: Hello, readers. Just a brief note for you all today. For those interested, we have a new challenge up at "Chit Chat on Author's Corner". Sign-ups for our theme song challenge run through May 14, 2011. The rules are simple. Tell us your favorite character about which to write, the character you'd like to receive a story about AND what you envision that character's theme song being. We think it'll be a lot of fun and hope to see all of you there! All our best!**_

_**Also, the second annual Profiler's Choice Awards ARE on the horizon. Please visit our forum, "Chit Chat on Author's Corner" to read the details we have released about this year's awards and offer your opinion on any changes or things you'd like to see this year. It's right around the corner!**_

_**Don't forget, this is the LAST day to sign-up for the theme song challenge! Come join us, guys - I think we'll have a lot of fun!**_

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**Suspicious Minds**

**Chapter One**

Hanging up the old fashioned rotary phone with a grimace, Jason Gideon shook his head as he tried to make sense of what he had just done. How in the hell had he allowed himself to just be suckered back into the vicious world of bureaucratic BAU bullshit?

How?

He should have invested in caller ID. Then perhaps he could have avoided the marker that had just been called in to him.

This is what he got for not succumbing to the latest technological mumbo jumbo.

He didn't want to be involved in this mess currently affecting his former colleagues. He'd worked hard to put that part of his life behind him. Starting over again had almost been more than he could bear.

But he'd done it, he thought grimly, picking up the knife from the counter and resuming dicing the shallots for the stuffing he'd been preparing. And now, all his hard work was being threatened.

And he wasn't referring to dinner, either.

His naturally suspicious mind wondered if this was God's way of trying to pull him back into the fold. But Aaron Hotchner had made it clear that he was simply a last resort.

And he supposed that exactly what he was. He couldn't have imagined Aaron coming to him for help unless he'd been truly desperate. The younger man had certainly sounded tense when they'd spoken earlier. And for Hotch to allow anyone to know he was strained was a testament to just how tenuous the situation must be.

Add that to the fact that Aaron Hotchner had called _him_...and the math didn't look good.

Not good at all.

_**XXX**_

Carefully navigating her dark sedan up the winding road of the mountain, Emily Prentiss sighed as she felt another wave of fatigue roll over her worn out body.

Just a little longer and Ian Doyle would be simply a nightmare from her past. Clyde had promised her...his last phone call ringing in her ear. She'd stay the night in the safe house that he and Hotch had arranged, and by morning, Emily Prentiss could be resurrected from the grave.

At least, that was the plan.

God, she prayed with a passion that gnawed deep inside her bones, please let this plan work.

Spying the log cabin in the distance, her heartbeat accelerated as she slowed her vehicle down on the gravel road. Her contact had assured her that the location was remote, and more importantly, secure, but at this stage in the game she couldn't be too careful.

There simply was no such thing.

Not anymore. Not until that elite team of specially trained operatives put a bullet in the center of Doyle's forehead, she thought mercilessly.

Keeping one eye on the plain wooden door at the front of the cabin, she reached for her gun on the passenger's seat. Killing the quiet engine, she sat for a moment, watching...waiting.

Anything could happen in her world now. It had before.

Her contact had said that the porch light would go dark by way of signal to the all clear, and a second later, she watched the dim bulb extinguish.

For once, things went according to plan.

Smoothly climbing out of the car, she approached cautiously, keeping her finger on the trigger as she raised her left hand to knock on the door.

Her eyes widened as the door opened to reveal a familiar face from her past. "I'll be damned!" she whispered, her throat suddenly going dry as she stared up into a craggy face that she knew so well.

"Probably," Jason Gideon retorted as he shrugged negligently, "but, you won't be alone on Judgment Day. Damn certain of that. Nice to see you, too, Prentiss. Won't you come in?" he asked sarcastically, gesturing her inside.

_**XXX**_

Emily took a tentative step forward as she tried to overcome the shock of the identity of her current host. Blinking, she watched in amazement as Gideon closed and locked the door, the simple act almost more than she could comprehend. "How the hell did you get mixed up in this, Gideon?" she asked bluntly, her mind reeling.

Raising an eyebrow, he offered drily, "Three guesses."

Pushing her hair off her forehead with an impatient hand, Emily shot her host a muted glare. "I'm not in the mood, Gideon. How did you get dragged into this? Do you realize how much danger you've just put yourself in by allowing yourself to be used as some pawn in the JTF's game?"

"I know a little something about chess, Prentiss, and I'm nobody's pawn," Gideon snorted, stomping past her as he headed deeper into the home. "I'm paying back a favor. That's all."

"Whose favor?" Emily asked insistently as she followed the older man into the utilitarian kitchen, tucking her pistol back into the holster on her hip. "My contact never mentioned that I was going to know the owner of this safe house."

"First of all," Gideon stated evenly, glancing up as he removed the roasted chicken from the oven, "This isn't a safe house. It's my home. Second, your contact probably didn't know that you'd know me. Odds are on our side."

"Jason," Emily whispered worriedly, her lips tightening as she felt her shoulders tensing once again, "I need to get out of here! I'm putting you at more risk than you..."

"I know all about the risks involved, Emily," Gideon muttered, sliding the hot pan onto the counter, it's aroma filling the kitchen. "Believe me, I got briefed. The reason you're here is that I'm off the grid."

"Somebody knew how to find you," Emily retorted, lifting a hand to massage her temples as the aroma of the perfectly cooked chicken breast wafted around her. How the hell long had it been since she'd eaten? Even though hunger pains were making their presence known, she seriously doubted she could manage to swallow the first bite. "Look, the only people that know I'm even alive are my handler, Clyde Easter, and JJ. You can't possibly know Clyde, and I can't see you keeping in contact with JJ without her telling Reid where you were. That leaves us with a problem. Somebody knows I'm alive that shouldn't. Which, incidentally, could get you very dead. Me, too, damn it! And since I've spent the last six months working really hard to stay alive, that'd really piss me off, Jason."

"Yeah," Gideon smirked. "Wouldn't make Aaron real happy either."

Grabbing the counter for support, Emily's eyes widened. "Aaron?" she echoed weakly, the name catching on her tongue. "Hotch knows I'm alive?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Suspicious Minds**

**Chapter Two**

Merely raising an eyebrow, Gideon nodded. "Has from the start, evidently. He's the one that called me and arranged this. He wanted you to be safe, and he knows better than anybody that I can be a handy guy to have around in a pinch. And since he's kept my secret for five years, I owed him."

"Oh my God," Emily said faintly, implications of her actions flooding through her, pictures flipping through her addled mind. "JJ never mentioned...I don't know..." she babbled, weaving on her feet suddenly.

"Sit down, Prentiss," Gideon ordered, dropping the knife he used to carve the chicken and reaching for her arm to steady her. And why hadn't anyone bothered to tell him that the woman was imitating the walking dead? "I'll fill you in on what I was told and you can eat something. Looks like you need it," he stated, eying her dispassionately. "A stiff wind could blow you away."

Swallowing as Jason reached for a plate, Emily struggled to process his revelation that Aaron knew she was alive. "How, Gideon?" she asked softly. "How does Aaron know anything about what's going on?"

Sliding a plate of food in front of her, he directed sternly, "Eat." He waited until she'd picked up her fork with a trembling finger to continue. "The way I understand it, JJ told him."

Her jaw dropped as his words registered. "JJ?" she gasped, her fork clattering loudly against the edge of the plate. "How could she do that? Hotch has a son! The knowledge of my whereabouts could have..."

Holding up a hand, Jason shook his head. "Jack is part of the reason she told him. She'd watched what Haley's death had done to him, Emily...the toll it took on him. She didn't want him to go through that nightmare again. So, she told him the truth in confidence. She could have lost her job for it, but she wasn't willing to let him suffer."

Licking her lips, Emily forced herself to lift the fork to her lips and take a small bite. "I was just one of Hotch's agents...I know it would have been hard on the team, but..."

Rolling his eyes, Jason replied irritably, "Would you stop? We both know that you were never just any agent to Aaron Hotchner, Prentiss. From what I've heard, after Haley died, that was the least important role you filled in his life."

Paling, Emily met Gideon's knowing gaze. "He told you?" she whispered, her throat suddenly closing as she tried to swallow.

"I sort of insisted on knowing the score when I realized that the man I helped train had crossed every line and broken every rule for you. I have a suspicious mind. Your reaction has pieced the rest of it together for me."

"I'd forgotten how smug you can sound when you know you're right," Emily muttered, reaching for the coffee cup he slid toward her, forcing herself to take advantage of the food and drink while she could.

Gideon stayed silent a few minutes as he watched her slowly eat. When she pushed her half-finished plate away, he said darkly, "You should have trusted the team, Prentiss. You should have relied on them when you realized Doyle was back."

Jerking her eyes toward the man, sitting in silent condemnation of her, she glared. "Back at you, Gideon. At least I left to protect them."

"Yeah," he acknowledged shrewdly, arching one brow as he leaned back in his chair. "That's what I told myself, too. But, I realized a few years ago that was a convenient lie I told myself. I was protecting me."

"There isn't any similarity in our situations, Gideon," Emily denied, shaking her head quickly, though his words struck a chord inside her that she'd been studiously ignoring for months. Damn JJ and her big mouth. If she'd never spoken in the first place, then Emily would never be facing these thoughts head on.

"Bull," he objected tersely, his succinct nature once again shining through. "You ran, Em, partly out of the desire to protect the team. I believe that," he acknowledged as he nodded. "But you kept running because of embarrassment...you never wanted any of them to find out what you'd been forced to do. Developing an intimate relationship with a terrorist..."

"I was undercover," Emily retorted defensively, meeting his glare with a matching one of her own. "Somehow, I think it would have been impossible to plead a headache every night."

"I'm not judging you, Emily," Gideon said softly, well aware that his own past decisions precluded him from passing any form of punishment on anyone else. "The problem was, you judged yourself. You were ashamed to come clean to them about your history. Same as I was afraid to show the team my own weaknesses. So I left."

"You make it sound cut and dry," Emily returned, her words tight as she tapped her fingers against the table.

"No, on the contrary, I'm well aware of how messy and complicated your choice was," Gideon countered. "Your alleged death has left a path of destruction that cuts through the entire team. And I feel obliged to remind you that these are not the most forgiving people in the world. When you go back tomorrow, you need to prepare yourself."

"Pardon?" Emily frowned, her dark eyebrows drawing together in confusion, his words arousing suspicion in her mind.

"You do realize that the team might not necessarily welcome you back with a warm reception," Gideon pointed out bluntly, his innate sense honesty not allowing him to back away from this conversation. She needed to be prepared. Hotch might be in love with her and JJ might have assisted her, but the rest...they'd feel betrayed.

He should know...he still remembered that look of utter disgust that had met him when he'd finally gathered the courage to face Spencer last year. "Sometimes, going home again is next to impossible, Prentiss," Gideon cautioned, his jaw tightening as he forced himself to keep his focus on her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Suspicious Minds**

**Chapter Three**

"I...I hadn't allowed myself to think that far ahead," Emily breathed, somehow capable of understanding the warning tone in his words of wisdom. "I mean, these last months of cloak and dagger crap...I just never thought it was going to end. And then, my handler called and told me we were on the brink of getting Ian. He said I should come home. That's as far as I'd allowed my mind to travel," she confided, waving a hand in the air, her fingers dropping suddenly. "But you're right. They're going to be so hurt," she whispered. "I might have a chance with Garcia...with making her understand. And probably Dave, too. But, Morgan...and Reid."

"Reid will be your toughest sell. Believe me," Gideon snorted, shaking his head.

"Why does that sound like the voice of experience talking?" Emily queried gently.

Clearing his throat, Gideon looked away as he recalled those painful memories. "A year or so ago, I went back to D.C. I wanted to try and make amends with Spencer...the way I'd left...the way I'd abandoned him. He was so angry," Gideon said huskily, his throat clogging with emotion. "He said nine words to me, but they were filled with such pain and anger." He shook his head regretfully.

"What were they?" Emily asked, almost afraid to hear his answer.

"You never gave me a chance to say goodbye," Gideon recited, the boy's anguished expression still seared into his mind. Inhaling deeply, he added, "Then he slammed the apartment door in my face."

Narrowing her eyes, Emily murmured, "It happened in May, didn't it?"

"Yeah," Gideon acknowledged as he nodded. Tilting his head, he asked, "How'd you know that? I always assumed Reid hadn't said anything to anyone since Aaron never called to bitch me out."

"He didn't," Emily replied, giving a brief shake of her head. "It's just...he called me that night. Drunk. Which, given his history, was a pretty big deal. He wanted me to pick him up at the bar he'd ended up in. When I asked him the next morning why he'd jeopardized his recovery, he said he'd seen a ghost from his past. I guess that was..."

...me," Gideon supplied gravely. "If I'd known..."

"He's okay. He got right back into meetings, Gideon. I just put the pieces together. That's all," Emily said quickly, seeing the concern creasing Jason's aging face.

"I did a number on that kid, Prentiss," Gideon said softly, tapping his finger against the wooden table at which they sat. "And he can't forgive me for it. I just hope you have better luck than I."

Lifting her thumb to her lips unconsciously, Prentiss chewed the tip of her nail worriedly. She'd been so focused on surviving...she'd purposefully put the thought of this day out of her thoughts. Now that the end of her nightmare was nigh, she wondered if she would just be swapping one bad dream for another.

And would she be dragging people back into her nightmare who might not wish to take the journey?

"Gnawing your thumb to shreds won't solve much," Gideon sighed, nodding toward her.

"Habit," Emily grumbled around her cuticle. "It only happens when I'm stressed."

"Mmmm," Gideon hummed as his eyes examined her damaged nails. "Must have been a hell of ride then."

"Maybe I shouldn't go back," Emily stated aloud, her eyes not meeting his.

"That would make you a coward, Prentiss. Don't make my mistake. I waited too long. I thought time would heal the wound I'd left behind. I was wrong."

"But..."

"No buts to it," Gideon denied, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table. "You've got to go back and face them, Em. You owe them an explanation. You owe Hotch a lot more than that."

"I know," Emily whispered, dropping her eyes to her wounded fingers. "I owe him my life. Him and JJ."

"They both love you, Emily. You're their family. You never fought that like I did. See, I'd already failed with the family I created for myself. And when the BAU got too hot for me to handle, I did it again. I disappeared. I let them go. I should have fought for them. But that battle was declared over long ago. Yours is just beginning. You've still got a chance."

"You really think so?" she whispered, the faint chance of a future glimmering at the edge of her thoughts.

"I do," Gideon answered as the cell phone in his pocket rang, the message tones resounding loudly. Glancing at the display, he released a relieved breath. "It's over, Em. Ian Doyle is down. You can go home."

Glued to her seat, Emily's throat worked hard to form words, but none came. "You're sure?" she whispered

Sliding the phone over to her, Gideon watched closely as Emily's eyes focused on the head of her former lover, a small hole marring the center of his forehead, Clyde Easter's signature way of killing all too apparent. "It's over," she breathed, her eyes widening. "It's finally over."

"No, Prentiss, your curtain just closed on the first act. The second is due to begin any time now. You ready for it?"

"I'm ready," she nodded jerkily, squaring her shoulders as she heard his phone ring once again.

Pressing the phone to his ear when Emily waved it away from her, Gideon murmured, "I'm bringing her in. She's ready, Aaron. All right. See you there."

"Where are we going now?" Emily asked, rising from her chair.

"I'm taking you as far as the Federal Building. After that, you're on your own," he stated softly, watching as she pulled her jacket tighter.

"Thank you, Jason," Emily replied sincerely. "I truly appreciate this."

Nodding, he released a slow breath. "And if things don't go quite as you'd like, you're one of two people now that knows where I am. If there comes a point where you feel like you need to hide and lick your wounds...you've got it." He left the "You'll need it" unspoken. There was no sense in making her any more apprehensive than she already was.

"Can we go?" she asked, anxious to get this homecoming over with.

"Anytime you're ready," Jason nodded.

Rising from the table, she knew things wouldn't get any easier sitting here fearing the future. Meeting it head-on, however, just might allow her to regain some of her precious control.

And she was more than ready to resume the driver's seat of her life.

Hopefully, she'd have a life left to live among those special people she'd called friends.

_**Finis**_


End file.
